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"If I cannot fly, let me sing!"
You love to sing, you love music, if only you could sing the way you wanted to sing. Do you ever wish you could just open your mouth and sound amazing, like Maria Callas, Renée Fleming, or Luciano Pavarotti? Wish you could produce effortless ballads like those of Kristin Chenoweth, Sutton Foster, or Celine Dion?
You're in the right place.
You're in the right place!
I've worked with students of all skill levels, from beginners to professionals. I thrive on seeing you grow, develop, and discover how easy singing is when you find the right balance. I've helped students realize their dreams, whether it is joining elite choral societies, singing lead in worship services, taking their band live, winning competitions, scholarships, joining colleges, or simply restoring their formerly beautiful voices to splendor, after many years of "living life."
Singing is an athletic, fine-motor sport. You can't see your vocal mechanism, which makes it difficult, at times to know if you're engaging the right muscles (and not the wrong ones, which leads to vocal strain). It takes a trained vocal technician to help you feel when your technique is right, so you can fulfill your voice's full potential.
About Vanessa
I am from Switzerland. Classical music is ubiquitous. From touring ancient monasteries with my high school a cappella choir, to attending concerts of renowned international artists, music was part of my culture. I saw my first opera, the Magic Flute, when I was 12 years old, and frequently thereafter attended operas on student tickets. I'll never forget the way the waves of sound traveled through my body, the scent of the stage filled my nose, and the colorful costumes provided a feast for my eyes. I knew, right then, that I needed to be an opera singer.
To this day, I love the stage. The energy of a live audience, the lights, the smells, and creative, engaging collaboration with wonderfully talented colleagues.
And yet, regardless of our desires and designs, I have come to understand that life has many surprises and lessons in store for us. One's true calling lies in the activity that creates a state of flow, during which whole hours or days pass because you so enjoy what you are doing. That is how I feel when teaching, which is also why I ask students to come in promptly at their lesson time. I lose track of time when teaching, and will keep going for hours.
I love working with people. There is nothing more rewarding than seeing the shock and delight on a student's face, when they get the balance right and their voice booms out of them with what seems like no effort at all.
The Other Half of the Training
Classical technique is only half of what makes a voice work. The other half is what's happening in the singer's head in the second before the sound comes out.
I've spent years learning to read behavior, tension patterns, hesitation, the tiny ways someone braces before a note, and connect it back to what's actually going on underneath. I can't read minds. But behaviors follow thoughts, and once you've spent enough time watching closely, you start to see the thought before the sound even happens. I'll sometimes tell a student exactly what they were thinking right before they sang a phrase, not as a party trick, but because that thought is usually the actual problem, not the vocal cords.
That skill didn't come from a certification. It came from years of necessity, learning to interpret communication, emotion, and behavior in situations where the usual signals weren't available to me. It turned out that same skill translates directly to the voice studio. A student who's people pleasing will push the sound. A student who's afraid of getting it wrong will over-manage it. A student who's finally trusting themselves will let a note happen instead of performing it. I don't just hear what's wrong technically, I usually know why, even when the why isn't muscular at all.
That combination, rigorous classical technique paired with genuinely reading what's happening underneath, is what makes the work go faster and go deeper than technique alone ever could.
Read more about that journey in this feature interview.
"Great! Do you have credentials?"
First, I'm glad you care. Second, yes, I do.
Credentials are very important. Learning to play any other instrument than voice, you can't really do much physical damage. Learning how to sing, however, can lead to vocal damage, if your voice teacher, certified or not, doesn't know what they're doing. This happened to me, when my piano teacher tried to teach me how to sing. It took a skilled technician to recover my young voice. Therefore, I take great care and responsibility with the voices entrusted to me.
It's important to find a teacher with good credentials, and equally important to find a teacher who actually knows how to teach YOU, and with whom you click. If you're not getting the results you want, and you've given it at least a year, it's okay to try someone new.
Being a phenomenal professional singer doesn't automatically make one a phenomenal teacher. The patience of building, or rebuilding, a voice, as well as an ability to find different ways to communicate, is another skill entirely.
That said, I received my Bachelor's degree at one of Europe's most elite conservatories---the Mozarteum University in Salzburg---studying with phenomenal Romanian bass Boris Bakow. Upon graduating, I was accepted to several elite universities for my Master's degree in Vocal Performance, such as Northwestern University, the Manhattan School of Music, the University of Lincoln Nebraska, and Brigham Young University. As a European used to free university education, the sticker shock of tuition led me to forgo living in Manhattan or Chicago and study in Utah. After graduating with a master's degree I began studying with NYC's Patricia McCaffrey, one of the world’s most sought-after vocal technicians, currently teaching on the voice faculties of The Curtis Institute of Music, Brooklyn College Conservatory of Music, Lidal North in Oslo, Norway, Berlin Staatsoper Studio, and the New Israeli Opera Meitar Opera Studio. Under her tutelage, and with the guidance of NYC's finest musical coaches from NYU, MSM, Juilliard, and the Metropolitan Opera, I was accepted to several young artist programs. Upon moving to Bloomington, Indiana for my husband's master's degree, I joined the vocal studio of Andreas Poulimenos at the Jacobs School of Music, whose students grace every stage in the world. I covered the Verdi Requiem for and performed with the Indianapolis Opera, as well as in Europe. I honor every one of my teachers and coaches who patiently built and guided me along this path. I strive to pass on their excellent technique and musical knowledge, creating further generations of healthy singers.